Bit Perfect Transport
- Thread starter gaunaik
- Start date
Heavens - I wonder what would happen if trade members started recommending that everyone buy more expensive DACs!
Seems that your mate's opinion - especially his conclusion - could equally have been quoted on our side of the argument in the 'DACs all sound the same' argument. His comment that digital interconnects modify jitter and potentially DAC performance were also conveniently overlooked. Some rather selective hearing in play?
He may be a terribly clever chap, buy I wonder whether you're quoting something he said a decade ago: he talks about DACs that have 'some internal clocking and buffering', noting that you will have to spend extra money on your DAC system to get this.
I'm struggling to think of a single DAC currently available that doesn't have internal clocking and buffering. They all remain susceptible to input.
However, most of us are roughly on the same page here:
He says: Data itself coming from different systems cannot cause a change in
sound - if the data values are both identical. But hardware may perform slightly differently if the timing integrity is compromised.
We said: From the software viewpoint, things look similar. From the hardware viewpoint, many factors are influential. And digital is essentially just an 'analog' signal.
Where he parts company with many is in his setting of a notional line in the sand above which everything is rosy: ie, that if you just spend enough on a 'proper' DAC, all transports sound the same. This theory doesn't pan out in reality. Simple as that - no PHD required.
Seems that your mate's opinion - especially his conclusion - could equally have been quoted on our side of the argument in the 'DACs all sound the same' argument. His comment that digital interconnects modify jitter and potentially DAC performance were also conveniently overlooked. Some rather selective hearing in play?
He may be a terribly clever chap, buy I wonder whether you're quoting something he said a decade ago: he talks about DACs that have 'some internal clocking and buffering', noting that you will have to spend extra money on your DAC system to get this.
I'm struggling to think of a single DAC currently available that doesn't have internal clocking and buffering. They all remain susceptible to input.
However, most of us are roughly on the same page here:
He says: Data itself coming from different systems cannot cause a change in
sound - if the data values are both identical. But hardware may perform slightly differently if the timing integrity is compromised.
We said: From the software viewpoint, things look similar. From the hardware viewpoint, many factors are influential. And digital is essentially just an 'analog' signal.
Where he parts company with many is in his setting of a notional line in the sand above which everything is rosy: ie, that if you just spend enough on a 'proper' DAC, all transports sound the same. This theory doesn't pan out in reality. Simple as that - no PHD required.
Cesare - are you certain that you are not making an all too common error in not appreciating that a certain amount of error correction is entirely normal when playing any kind of CD, data or audio? The result of this error correction, which happens in real time - even when the CD is read 50× faster than the base speed for Red Book audio - is the data are presented to the host with 100% accuracy.
A remarkable number of people do not appreciate that the output of the error correction system is perfect data; things have to be quite bad before the disc reader resorts to interpolation, and by that time your rip will be running so slowly that you will know something is wrong.
The core low level error correction system used on audio CDs is the same as that used on data CDs and, as you know, gazillions of bytes are read off these each day without so much as a single bit being corrupted.
Mescalito
pfm Member
In the digital domain, bit perfect is bit perfect. The post ADC analog stage could differentiate the bits of kit, though.
Chris
Mescalito
pfm Member
I'm not as touchy feely as you, Lou.
ITEM MAKES HIS LIVING SELLING SOLUTIONS TO NON EXISTANT PROBLEMS> CAVEAT EMPTOR>
Chris
Interesting...
Correct me if I'm wrong, I think Teddy Ray uses a
$300 Logitech Squeezebox Touch
http://www.logitech.com/en-us/speakers-audio/wireless-music-systems/devices/squeezebox-touch
into a
$3,000 Forssell Technologies MDAC-2
http://www.forsselltech.com/products/5/#!/products/5
and I know my local dealer uses a
£279 Sonos Connect
http://www.sonos.com/shop/products/connect?lang=en-us®ion=uk
into the DAC in his
£4,500 Moon Evolution Series SuperNova RS CD Player
http://www.simaudio.com/moonsupernova.htm
Question is, if that's what guys in the trade think and do, what are the rest of us really up to?
Commercially, it's a tricky one for manufacturers: on the one hand, DACs are designed and - equally importantly - marketed on the basis on transport agnosticism: Our Converters Are So Good, Your Source is Irrelevant! Inevitably, that claim contains hyperbole.
Some makers then skewer themselves by coming out with a matching digital transport which has to be sold on the basis of it being better than a Squeezebox: a thing previously claimed impossible by the marketing literature of the DAC.
Sonos and Squeezeboxes are great to dem to customers, because they have pretty interfaces, are reliable and sound OK. However, very, very few dealers have expertise in computer audio that extends beyond such commercial plug-and-play devices. Generally, they're terrified of it.
Mainly, I sell DACs. I should therefore welcome with open arms the idea that all your problems will disappear if you only spend much more money on a converter.
Sadly, it's not true.
Darth Vader
From the Dark Side
Yes and no. Take for example a poor quality CD with lots of errors. A computer will reread several times to get the data and if it can't will output an error message. A CD player has one pass so some uncorrected errors will be passed through to the DAC. You'd be surprised at how bad some CDs are especially from around the early 80s whether this was poor manufacture or 'CD rot' is not clear.
Ripping software will reread until 'it' is satisfied and then check the confidence in the accurate rip database.
Have you ever checked any CDs for BLER, E11, E21, E31, E12, E22, E32 errors?
Cheers,
DV
Regularly. Apart from one or two distinct cases of CD rot (which are now, for all intents and purposes, unreadable) from the early nineties, most of my own discs show quite acceptable error rates with minimal C2 operation - 1 or 2 per disc, on average. I don't believe I've encountered an E32.
I've looked after my discs but not especially so, so it's reasonable to assume that my experience is not unique and everybody else's discs are showing up E32 here, there and everywhere.
It is a common misconception amongst audiophiles that corrected errors are audible. The fact that the system is designed to operate with certain types of error in great abundance leaves a lot of people rather confused.
In the main, CD rot was due to a particular factory which operated a process in which the layers slowly reacted with one another and in due time...
My very earliest discs seem fine; it's a few of the slightly later ones where, AFAIK, some manufacturing plants got cocky and tried to hurry the process to obtain greater throughput. Fortunately, such (probably unplayable) discs are relatively rare now.